Father figures

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Frank Howson is spending much time of late thinking about the
unexpected turns that his life has taken, as well as the meaning of
some odd coincidences.

For instance, how he returned home to Melbourne after eight
years of self-imposed exile in Los Angeles with no job prospects
and a tattered reputation and found opportunities at his feet,
without even asking; or the coincidence of rebuilding his
relationship with his young son, and then being asked to direct a
play about fathers and sons.

En route to a photo shoot, Howson walks up Oliver Lane - Oliver
is the name of his son - where a pivotal scene from Flynn,
the 1996 film he wrote and directed, was shot. In that scene,
Flynn (Guy Pearce) has just returned from New Guinea; he
is depressed, penniless and disillusioned with life.

Howson notices graffiti on a laneway wall: "Forgiveness from
others is worthless if you can't forgive yourself." The message
resonates.

"It's kind of spooky how things are happening. Almost like
everything that's gone before has set me up for what's to come," he
says.

To say that Howson (the television-radio gadfly John Michael
Howson is his cousin) has been tested over the past decade is a
cruel understatement.

In the middle of 1997 he left Australia after the collapse of
his film production company Boulevard Films. A decade earlier, when
investment tax schemes were at their peak, Boulevard raised $24.5
million that went into a large slate of films, including
Boulevard of Broken Dreams, Hunting, Heaven
Tonight and Flynn.

Many of the films were modest financial, if not critical,
successes. Flynn, which was controversially re-shot with
new actors during its protracted production, became a
success-de-scandal. Financial problems were brewing behind the
scenes at Boulevard.

By the time the money ran out - exactly where it went isn't
clear, according to Howson - he copped a suspended sentence and
fine for "imposing on the Commonwealth". Meanwhile, his marriage
had ended. And, he lost his voice - a possible consequence of the
breakdown he suffered - before a doctor at the University of
California Los Angeles diagnosed the mystery complaint as spasmodic
dysphonia.

With the help of Botox injections that kill the nerve endings to
the vocal chords and relax the throat, the former child-star
(Magical Frank was once his nickname), singer, actor, film director
and writer can talk again, albeit in a toneless, stuttering
staccato.

Far from being resentful or vindictive over his fall from grace,
the experience "made me a better person, a far better director", he
insists.

"I don't have to read someone's autobiography, or get my
experiences from reading how someone else lived such extremes. I
have seen human nature at its worst and its best. The kindness of
people towards me, especially in Los Angeles when people didn't
know me, touched me. For a long time I was very bitter and angry,
which obviously led to this," he says, pointing a finger to his
throat.

"I think I now have a far greater insight into the human
condition, which I think helps me to convey to actors what triggers
things within them."

Again, coincidence played a part in Howson landing the job as
director of Caryl Churchill's play A Number, which will be
performed for the first time in Melbourne at
fortyfivedownstairs.

Sharing a drink with the Seekers' Keith Potger after a reading
of Howson's screenplay Winter in America - the story of
boxer Les Darcy and arguably the most enduring unproduced script in
Australian cinema - Howson was introduced to architect and actor
Barnaby Chiverton, who had acquired the rights to Churchill's play.
Initially, Howson felt that Chiverton had the wrong person in mind
to direct a play about cloning. Reading the two-hander, he was in
tears.

In A Number, a father seeking redemption for his
failings talks to a man who we believe is his son. What he doesn't
realise is that the boy is but one of several clones of his son. A
number. Michael Carman and Ross Ditcham will play the father and
son, respectively (the father was played by Michael Gambon on the
West End and by Sam Shepard on Broadway).

For Howson, the play is less about the moral issue of cloning
than it is about the way experience and environment ultimately
shape character and destiny.

"She (Churchill) is saying we all start from the same position.
It's what our environment, our relationships to parents, all of
those things that come into play to form the person we become."

That notion is mirrored in many of Howson's recollections,
excerpts from his self-deprecatory, 500-page tell-all that he hopes
to publish, and his impressive reservoir of show-biz anecdotes.

"Elia Kazan once said that he finds being in a rehearsal room
with actors pretty fruitless. He said, 'I get more out of having
lunch with an actor than I do going over and over lines because if
I know the experiences you've had in life then I can direct you, I
know what you have inside of you'."

A Number by Caryl Churchill is at
fortyfivedownstairs from September 6 to 18. Bookings: 9662
9966.